Lone shooters, terrorism, and semantics

This is a big one. It's so big, in fact, that many people will want to turn their backs on it and pretend it doesn't and couldn't exist. But it's real. It does exist.

No killing of innocent people can be called a "negligible statistic." But what label do you apply when an entire government stands by and does nothing, while millions of people die?

A supposed lone shooter motivated by political ideology kills 20 people, and this is called a terrorist act. But what category do you apply when a government enables a monopoly that destroys millions of lives?

Don't bother seeking answers from the mainstream press. They play dumb. They pretend to be clueless. They avoid these millions of deaths, as if they're not worthy of news coverage.

Doesn't that sound strange? The press, which constantly sniffs the air for stories that will rouse public interest, ignores a force that is routinely killing millions of people. Why? Because that very force pays huge sums of money to the press.

So let's start here, with one of the most shocking mainstream reviews ever published in a medical journal. The date is July 26, 2000. The journal is the Journal of the American Medical Association. The author is Dr. Barbara Starfield, a respected and revered public health expert at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Impeccable mainstream credentials up and down the line. Starfield's review is titled, "Is US Health Really the Best in the World?" She concludes:

The US medical system kills 225,000 people a year. 106,000 deaths from FDA-approved medical drugs, and 119,000 deaths as a result of mistreatment and errors in hospitals.

Extrapolate those numbers out to a decade: that's 2.25 MILLION deaths.

In an email interview I did with Dr. Starfield about a year before she died, I asked her whether the US government had undertaken any overall program to remedy this ongoing catastrophe, and whether anyone from the federal government had contacted her to consult on such a program. To both questions, she answered: NO.

Keep in mind that the US federal government, through agencies like the FDA, the CDC, and their parent agency, Health and Human Services, has extensive power over the US medical system. In fact, the FDA, through its routine manipulations and regulations, assures that the conventional mainstream medical system in America remains top dog; and competition from what has been called alternative or natural health is reduced as much as possible. It might interest you to know that, when a pharmaceutical company wants the FDA to review a new drug and certify it as safe and effective for public use, the pharmaceutical company pays a fee to the FDA. Dr. Starfield pointed this out to me. Therefore, in a real sense, the FDA works FOR drug companies.

I mention all this to make sure you understand that the federal government could, if it wanted to, undertake a sweeping investigation of the US medical system, from top to bottom, and face up to the ongoing of tragedy of millions of lives lost. The federal government could come down mightily on the medical system and do everything possible to eradicate this holocaust.

But the government doesn't. It doesn't do that. It stands by while millions die. Year after year after year.

I could cite other findings that back up Dr. Starfield's published analysis, and I have, in other articles. Here, I'll keep it simple. The government is entirely culpable.

Occasionally, I receive an email from a reader that goes this way: "I showed a friend your article and he said, what about all the lives the medical system saves? Why doesn't Rappoport factor those in?"

To which I offer this. Suppose you created an invention---let's call it X---which, for the sake of argument, we'll assume saves many lives. But you also notice it kills many people---2.25 million people per decade. Would you simply stand back and assert that, on balance, you're doing a fine job? Would you? Or would you do your very best to eliminate all those deaths, which are occurring as a result of your X? To put it another way, would you seek to be humane, or would you be a vast criminal?

As I started out, above, no killing of an innocent person is a negligible statistic, whether you call it an act of terrorism or something else. But what do you call it when the awesome power of an entire government is silent and passive, for decades, while the very monopoly it is enabling destroys millions of lives?

You need to be a member of 12160 Social Network to add comments!

These people who get admitted to hospital have to sign Consent Forms - in case of unfavourable outcome, of which there is many. I know this for a fact because I had to go to hospital once - to give birth. I had to sign truck loads of documents first. Fortunately, being an older woman I knew I would never have to do it again. You wave away your rights to life if something goes wrong and there is no recourse.